The invention relates to data packet processing.
Data throughput is measured by the amount of data that is transferred from one network point to another network point in a certain period of time. The hardware and software components of many computer networks, such as Ethernet local area networks (LANs), are designed to transfer a certain optimal data packet size to maximize bandwidth usage. However, data traffic on the Internet is characterized by the exchange of short data packets which are typically shorter than the optimal size. The result is that data packet throughput on an Ethernet computer network is significantly reduced when connected to the Internet.